


Don't Let Me Be Lonely Tonight

by nwspaprtaxis



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Anxiety Attacks, Bathing/Washing, Common Cold, Emotional Baggage, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Exhaustion, F/M, Hurt Dean Winchester, Hurt/Comfort, Pain, Panic Attacks, Protective Lisa Braeden, Season/Series 06, Sick Dean Winchester, Sneezing, Tenderness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-25
Updated: 2011-11-25
Packaged: 2017-12-12 23:09:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,055
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/817146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nwspaprtaxis/pseuds/nwspaprtaxis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I thought you promised you’d come back in one piece…” a voice says quietly, without judgment or recrimination, from behind him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Don't Let Me Be Lonely Tonight

**Author's Note:**

  * For [i_speak_tongue](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=i_speak_tongue).



> **_A/N:_** This is my fill for **i_speak_tongue** ’s [prompt](http://mad-server.livejournal.com/56533.html?thread=1534933#t1534933) at **mad_server** 's ongoing comment-fic meme, [Again, But With More Colds](http://mad-server.livejournal.com/56533.html) which went thusly: _Dean has just come off some kind of traumatizing job, and Sam's not really there for him (either because he's too busy jonesing for demon blood or because he's soulless, up to you). He also has a cold. Queue Cas showing up, asking him what's wrong and Dean trying to tell him, but having a hard time because he's sneezing so much. And feverish. Anything between mild slash and gen would be awesome_. I am sorry for absolutely FUBAR-ing this prompt. I didn't intend to and then Dean absolutely refused to do anything else. So take up the lack of sharing-and-caring with him.
> 
> Occurs after _6x02 TWO AND A HALF MEN_ but before _6x05 LIVE FREE AND TWI-HARD_ with no spoilers.
> 
> Special thanks to: **mad_server** for being awesome and hosting this meme as well as beta'ing.
> 
>  
> 
>  ** _Disclaimer:_** Do not own. Am not making a profit. Just simply having fun with their psyches and returning them slightly more battered to Kripke and Co. and all that Yada Yada. Also, I do not own the song with the same title by James Taylor – just borrowing the lyrics for the title, so don’t sue.

Dean silently lets himself into the darkened house, muffling a sneeze against his shoulder as he locks the door. His movements are sluggish as he double-checks the deadbolt and peeks through the blinds, compensating for his injures.

“I thought you promised you’d come back in one piece…” a voice says quietly, without judgment or recrimination, from behind him. He startles, twisting sharply and Lisa’s there, standing behind him, shadowy in the twilight-blue darkness. She raises her hand slightly and hits the switch.

Light floods the room, making him screw up his eyes and fling up his hand.

When his vision’s adjusted he sees her and she’s dressed in black yoga pants and a white tank top and she isn’t wearing makeup. He crosses the room in three long strides and then she’s in his arms. He buries his face in her loose hair, inhaling her floral shampoo smell — Suave Cherry Blossom — wordlessly begging her to be quiet. She wraps her arms around his shoulders and guides his head down, holding him tightly. It’s uncomfortable with his neck at this angle. He shifts, compromising for her height, and allows himself to relax incrementally for the first time in over three days.

After a moment, he sniffs hard and disengages.

“Are you okay?” Her voice is soft, wary, eyes searching his, and he hates he’s the one who put the uncertainty there.

He snorts back snot and smears his palm down the length of his face. “Where’s Ben?”

Lisa tilts her head to the side, worry suddenly coming off her in waves. “He’s at a friend’s house tonight, but he’s fine. Why? D’you…”

“No. It’s… it’s not like that.” He pauses and twists to the side, a sneeze exploding out of him. He’s still doubled up when he feels Lisa place a hand on his shoulder blade. Even through his layers it feels cool.

“Okay.” Lisa’s voice is calm, even, and he recognizes the underlying crisis-mode from when Ben’d sprained his wrist last year. “C’mon. Let’s get you cleaned up.” Taking his hand, she shuts off the light and leads him up the stairs.

His footsteps are slow and clumsy with exhaustion and he stumbles, once, halfway up the stairs, crashing to his knees and sneezing hard against the wall. He mumbles out _I’m fine_ s and _It’s okay_ s as she hauls him upright again, pressing up against his side, shushing his babbling and pulling his arm around her shoulder. He’s surprised at her strength as she half-drags him the rest of the way.

In the bathroom, she sits him on the toilet and flicks on the vanity light, wincing as she takes stock of his appearance. He figures he must look like crap. Leaving him be for the moment, she turns on the taps as she pulls the shower curtain closed — it’s a new one, he notices, all overlapping, abstract green-and-blue stripes. _It looks like the sea_ , he thinks inanely. When she turns back to him, he startles, realizing that he should’ve been undressing or doing something and starts to pull off the stiff green overshirt, halting his motions with a sharp gasp as his shoulder explodes in a white flare of pain.

“Sorry,” he mumbles as she crouches before him in some yoga pose, sitting on her heels, her weight on her toes.

“Dean.” She stares into his eyes. “Shut up.” Her words are firm despite her kind tone. “No more apologies. Okay? I meant it when I said you could come back.” She snags the collar of his Carhartt button-down shirt and tugs it the rest of the way off his shoulders and slips it down, catching her lower lip between her teeth in sympathy when he groans softly, twisting his arm. She sets the shirt besides her and he knows she doesn’t miss his grimace and grunt as he cups his left shoulder. She snags the hem of his short-sleeve black t-shirt, but doesn’t make a move, waiting.

Dean shakes his head, releasing the joint and clenching his jaw, bracing himself.

“Hey. Quit being such a dumbass. I’m not Sam.” The quiet words are a slap, and he slumps, curling on himself, hands dangling limply between his knees, the remnants of his endurance ebbing away. “You don’t have to bottle it up.”

She doesn’t move to reach under the sink where he knows she keeps a small pair of scissors — to cut toenails mostly — and instead eases the shirt up the length of his torso and off his good arm, pulling the neck over his head before slipping it off his left shoulder, allowing it to spool off his arm without him having to move the wrenched joint. To her credit, she doesn’t comment on the Rainbow-Brite bruising that covers his shoulder and trails down his side.

“Dislocated shoulder,” he tells her. “Sam popped it back in.”

The top of her head bobs and he hears her exhale slowly. After a long moment she meets his eyes and gives him a soft smile as she drops to her knees and takes his booted feet into her lap, tenderly untying and loosening the laces. He bends over, hands reaching to take them from her and she bats away his fingers with a _let me_ as she moves on to the other foot and peels off his boots, socks.

The small room is filling with steam as she pulls him to his feet, legs shaky with fatigue. “Can you stand?” The question is quiet as she unclips the belt and unbuttons, unzips his jeans and tugs denim and cotton boxers down, letting them pool around his feet. She stops him from tripping over the side of the tub as he stifles a sneeze and misses his footing. Then he’s in the shower, the water comfortably hot and beating hard on sore muscles. He stifles another sneeze and a curse against his shoulder as he reaches for the worn white washcloth that’s been washed in too much fabric softener.

“You okay?” Her voice is muffled and faint beyond the water.

“Yeah,” he croaks out, his voice raspy.

He hears the door click shut and he lets himself stand under the hard spray for what feels like a long time. Finally he soaps up the small square of terrycloth and swipes it haphazardly across his body before shutting off the water, feeling guilty that it’s already cooling. He makes a mental note to slip an extra fifty into her purse in the morning to help with the bills now that she’s back on one paycheck.

When he pushes back the nylon curtain, she’s there, sitting cross-legged on the toilet, her bare shoulders damp and glistening in the steam. She stands and hands him a large royal blue towel. He takes it from her and dries himself off and he notices she has his track pants and t-shirt folded on the sink. He’s surprised she’s kept them.

The pants don’t give him any trouble but he accepts her help in manipulating the shirt and even with her help, he still can’t quite stifle the groan that escapes him. Lisa reaches up with the towel and scrubs his hair dry.

“It’s late. Why don’t we go to bed?” She steps back and offers him a couple of Ibuprofens, holding the generic Target bottle in her left hand. He swallows them dry and breaks down coughing. The hacks shift into sneezes and then she’s there again, her hand bracing his sore shoulder. “You feel a little warm. And not just from the shower, either. How long have you had that?” He recognizes the doctor-mom tone and it makes the corner of his mouth quirk for the scantest of seconds.

He shrugs, grimaces at the movement.

“Okay.” She reaches up and flips open the mirror-fronted medicine cabinet. Replacing the Advil, she takes down the bottle of Nyquil and pours a generous dose of the viscous green liquid into the tiny plastic measuring cup, topping it off before handing it to him. She studies him critically with sad eyes as he downs it as though it’s a shot of whiskey.

Taking his hand once again, she leads him through the still-unfamiliar house and he feels the pangs of guilt fanning back to life in the pit of his belly at the fact he’s made her give up a place she’s finally built into a home for the second time in a year.

She doesn’t seem angry or upset, though, as she tugs him into the bedroom. He recognizes the brown-and-tan comforter and it soothes him. “I kept the gun and holy water,” she tells him. “They’re still under the bed.” And she pulls back the covers, slipping between the cotton sheets and sliding across the bed, allowing him to crawl into his old spot — a barrier between her and whatever possible danger lies beyond the door.

The mattress is still molded to his body and she fits into his side, as though he’s never left. And it feels so _right_ after everything going so wrong. He feels Lisa’s thumb caressing skinned knuckles.

“D’you wanna talk about it?” Her voice washes over him.

“Hm?”

“Whatever’s going on in your head. D’you wanna talk? You’re quiet.”

Her kindness and concern nearly undoes him when he remembers Sam’s hard blank stare as they torched the kids’ bodies… bodies that were no bigger than Ben… the way his brother reburied the kids and finished the job while Dean doubled up against a tree to puke his guts out; lunch, breakfast, and bile burning as they rushed back up his throat, his body shuddering with heaves. And Sam’d just… waited, eyes empty, his face arranged into a curiously bored-disgusted-annoyed expression.

“No. You don’t wanna know.” His voice cracks and he can almost taste the acid again as he rolls on his side, away from her, and he regrets it instantly as his bruises flare to attention. He stifles his whimper into the corner of his pillow as a shudder escapes him before he can lock up his muscles again.

He feels Lisa prop herself up, the mattress springs creaking with her movements, and her strong, lithe body drapes against his back, her hands, arms, cool even through his t-shirt. She rests her chin lightly on his uninjured shoulder, putting none of her weight on him, as a sneeze escapes him. He cries out, a soft and bitten-off sound, before he can stop himself.

Her hands rub his abdomen and he doesn’t protest as she rolls his body towards her, breath stuttering and sighing as the pressure is released from his abused joint, and holds him in her arms, molding herself against him.

“Hey. Breathe,” she says. “You with me?” And it’s then he realizes he’s almost hyperventilating, his breaths shallow and rapid.

“Remember what I taught you?” She slides her cold palm up his shirt, settles it against his taut stomach.

He nods and focuses on shifting his breathing. Even when it’s from his diaphragm and he’s lifting her hand satisfactorily, she doesn’t withdraw.

“You almost freaked out there…” she begins stroking his hair with her other hand and he curls into her. “Wanna tell me why?”

Dean shakes his head. “Can’t…” He exhales a near sob. “You don’t wanna know.”

“Dean,” Lisa’s voice takes on that patient quality she normally reserves for small children, dogs, and him. “Look. You’re right. I don’t wanna know. But it’s eating you up inside… and if you’re going to come back… you gotta let me in a little. We can’t keep playing this game.” She pauses. “I want you to come back,” she clarifies. “I know you can’t leave your work at the door and that you can’t tell me everything. I get it. But you gotta give a little.”

Dean feels his breathing almost stop.

“You can trust me, okay? I’ve seen you at your worst and if I didn’t kick you out those first weeks — and God knows I considered it — I’m not about to do it now.” She breathes out a deep, cleansing breath. “So…”

Dean closes his eyes. “I can’t, Lise. I’m sorry, but I can’t. I’m… I’m not…. As soon as I figure it out, I’ll tell you, okay? I promise.”

He feels Lisa nod against his temple. “Yeah. Okay. Just get some sleep."


End file.
